A strawberry banana smoothie for me, and a raw bison filled kong for Frodo.

In addition to that, during our shaping session today Frodo offered 2 behaviors that made me very very happy. Our actual purpose for the training session was having Frodo target one of my socks with his paw. I want to teach him to put his paw on my foot when I lift my foot up. He seems clueless about targeting my foot, so I decided to try a sock and eventually put said sock on my foot.

Now for the super awesome parts, yes TWO of them! I don't often get TWO awesome behaviors from this dog in a sessions...

1. He offered a bow. We have worked on bow like...forever. On and off for, literally, months without him ever offering the behavior or even anything close to it unless I lured it. I wasn't really sure that he even really understood what we were doing. Then he offered it. Little nub wagging and everything. I threw massive amounts of treats at him.

2. Early in the session before he had the targeting of the sock down to a science he was trotting around my room finding other, more familiar, things to target like can covers and books. On one of his rounds he passed something, whipped around and laid down. I didn't even see what he laid down on so I went over and he was on the very edge of his MAT! The towel that we have done only two sessions of mat work on was sticking out of it's hiding place and he didn't even hesitate to lay down on it! I hope this is just the beginning of a long-term, serious relationship between these two.

After our shaping session I read a bunch of Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt because I am participating in a 12 week book study of this book and hopefully helping Frodo on his reactivity with the information that I learn during the study.

Yesterday during class, Robin asked me if I was going to get Frodo back into Nosework. I haven't really given it much thought lately, with my finances being what they are and with everything else going on right now, but I decided to do a session tonight with his dinner. It was the first session I have done since moving to Minnesota (about 2 months ago), and let me tell you, he certainly hasn't forgotten how to use that nose of his!!

It only took finding one hide before he was screaming in the bathroom while I was hiding his food and running like a bat outta hell to get to the search room. I'd also forgotten just how much he loves this game, and beyond that, how freaking GOOD he is at it. He has definitely found his niche in this world.

And that brought us to this. Sitting in our almost unpacked new living room with our respective treats. It's been a good day, despite the raging blizzard outside!

Frodology101

About

A training blog about the trials (not the fun kind!) and tribulations of trying to get my 4 year old insecure, reactive, ill-mannered, thick-skulled Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Frodo, ready to move from rural Pennsylvania to the city of Minneapolis in the span of a summer. Grab a seat and sharpen a pencil, class is in session!